Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: Understanding Reality
Kant’s Transcendental Idealism
Descartes is correct in some aspects (there are a priori ideas), but incorrect in others (innate ideas are useless if not applied to sensory perception in space and time). Hume is also correct in a certain aspect (knowledge originates in sensitivity), but incorrect in another (we need more than passive sensitivity; we need active understanding). The Kantian project, therefore, overcomes the limitations of both rationalism and empiricism. It proposes a rational basis for enlightened criticism itself.
Transcendental Idealism
Any knowledge is subject to two types of conditions, which Kant calls empirical (or material) conditions and a priori (or transcendental) conditions. Empirical conditions are private and purely temporal. Space and time, as conditions of our perception, are not specific, but universal and necessary: a priori conditions that precede experience.
Noumenon and Phenomenon
Kant’s response to this difficulty is that we never know things “as they are” (noumena), but only “as we perceive them” (phenomena). In other words, we do not know—nor can we ever know—how things are in themselves (noumena, or things-in-themselves). What we have knowledge of is how they appear to us (phenomena). This “thing in itself” can never be known because we cannot know with certainty that anything exists outside of our perception.
A noumenon is something that exists beyond space and time, something “pure,” and therefore, it will never be within reach of the human spirit, because of our inherent human limitations.
Copernican Revolution in Philosophy
If knowledge were to be guided by the nature of the object, it would seem impossible that anything could be known a priori about the object. However, if the object is governed by the laws of knowledge that the subject imposes, then everything is perfectly explained.
Kant’s Categories of Judgments
- Analytical Judgments: The predicate is already contained within the subject. For example, “The whole is the sum of its parts,” or “All bodies are extended.” Analyzing the subject (“whole” or “body”) immediately reveals the predicate (“sum of its parts” or “extension”).
- Synthetic Judgments: The predicate is *not* contained within the subject. These statements are informative; they tell us something we did not already know. They increase our knowledge. Examples: “The Puig Major is the highest mountain in Majorca,” or “Miquel weighs 83 kilos.”
A Priori vs. A Posteriori Judgments
- A Priori Judgments: Their truth can be known *independently* of experience. For example, “Any body is extended” requires no empirical verification because, by definition, any body has extension.
- A Posteriori Judgments: Their truth is known *from* experience. For example, “Any body is heavy” requires empirical verification.
Synthetic A Priori Judgments
A synthetic a priori judgment is universal and necessary, independent of experience, yet applicable to experience. Kant believed that mathematics and physics are full of synthetic a priori judgments. The universality and necessity of a judgment can only be established independently of experience, that is, a priori.
Examples
- Analytic a priori: “A triangle has three angles.” (Universal and necessary, but does not extend knowledge).
- Synthetic a posteriori: “All swans are white.” (Not necessary or universal, but extends knowledge – though it’s only probably true).
- Synthetic a priori: “Everything that happens has a cause.” (Universal and necessary, and extends knowledge).